JetBlue announced several executive appointments, including:
- Daniel Shurz as head of revenue, network and enterprise planning. He had been senior vice president of commercial for Frontier Airlines, where he worked for 14 years.
- Dave Clark as head of finance and strategy. He joined the company in 2009 and most recently served as head of revenue and planning.
- Shelly Griessel as vice president, customer support. She joined the airline in 2022 and has served as managing director, customer support.
Hilton announced that it has named Luigi Romaniello as managing director and Jasmin Howanietz as executive director of sales for the Waldorf Astoria New York, which will reopen in the fourth quarter of this year following an extensive multiyear restoration. Romaniello has had a 30-plus year career in hospitality, most recently as managing director at The Plaza in New York. Prior to that, he spent more than 20 years with Rosewood Hotels & Resorts. Howanietz has returned to the Waldorf Astoria New York; she previously held multiple roles at the property and has held positions at other luxury hospitality groups. When it reopens, the hotel will feature some of Manhattan’s largest rooms and suites, more than 43,000 square feet of event space totaling 17 hosting spaces, and one of the largest spas in New York City, spanning more than 30,000 square feet.
FCM Meetings & Eventsannounced a reorganization of its Americas operations team, including the appointment of:
- Gabriella Antoniotti in the newly created role of head of operations; she has been with the company for 10 years, most recently as director of business improvements.
- Steph Garcia as team leader, responsible for day-to-day operations of the event travel division. She joined the company last year and previously worked for Liberty Travel.
ATPCO has promoted Chris Phillips to the role of chief commercial officer. He had been vice president of global sales. In his new role, Phillips will continue to oversee global sales while adding leadership of ATPCO's recent acquisition of 3Victors to his remit. He will be based in London and continue to report to ATPCO president and CEO Alex Zoghlin. Phillips joined the company five years ago after 15 years with Delta Air Lines, He also had worked at Four Corners Consulting Group.
Navan, the business travel platform, announced that Rich Liu, formerly chief revenue officer will rejoin the company as the CEO of Navan Travel, a new role, reporting to Ariel Cohen, Navan’s CEO. and oversee the broader travel business line to drive growth and execute against larger company initiatives.
According to the announcement, Liu has helped drive five multi-billion-dollar unicorns across two IPOs, a successful acquisition, and numerous funding rounds at Navan (then TripActions), MuleSoft (Salesforce), Meta (Facebook), and other SaaS companies, including most recently as chief business officer at Everlaw, an AI litigation and investigation platform.
As CEO of Navan Travel, Liu will spearhead various aspects of the business, including profit and loss, go-to-market, strategy, business development, product, design and operations. As Navan CRO from 2018–2021,he helped drive Navan’s New Distribution Capability (NDC) certification, three funding rounds and the launch of Navan Expense, which eliminates expense reporting.
Liu’s return to Navan’s executive team follows several years of fast growth, recording a nearly 5x increase in revenue from 2021–2023. Recent advancements include generative AI optimization and the launch of Ava, Navan’s automated virtual assistant; the establishment of Navan as an NDC-enabled travel management company with 14 connections; and the company’s global expansion, with five acquisitions in two years.